random ramblings, musings and profundities of a perpetual student and teacher

Call someone WITHOUT having to Talk with them!

I so wish that there was a special button… or special number… or a special way… I could CALL someone… and leave them a Voicemail Message… without having to talk with them…

You know what I mean!

Don’t pretend you don’t!

Everybody has certain people… acquaintances… or business contacts… Where you just dread talking with them because YOU CANNOT GET THEM OFF THE PHONE!

I have a business acquaintance like that (well, at least one)… Ed and I both cringe at the thought of talking with him on the phone because he has this habit of REFUSING to allow you to say goodbye and hang up… There’s ALWAYS, “Oh! One more thing!”

(And, no, :) Don’t worry… I’m not talking about you. This person already knows who he is because we have talked about it. I am very open and honest and upfront with people that way…)

So…… Don’t you wish — in this technological world we live in — that there was a way to leave a VOICEMAIL for someone…. WITHOUT ringing their phone…?

I know, I know… There is email… which most people use for this type of communication…

But the reason it’s important to be able to leave a voicemail is… TO CHANGE SAME-DAY PLANS… or to CONFIRM SAME-DAY PLANS…

And, I know… It’s pretty bad if you want to avoid someone so much that you don’t even want to speak with him to confirm your same-day plans with him… But…

With him… It IS that bad!

If I call him to confirm our dinner meeting, I KNOW I will be on the phone with him for 30 minutes minimum.

Sometimes I have to just loudly say, “OK GREAT. WELL, I’LL SEE YOU THEN! TALK TO YOU LATER!” and simply hang up on him.

Oh… I only I could send him a voicemail… without ringing his phone.

Note: We used to be able to do this in the old Nextel days, by calling a special number — but only for Nextel customers.

Also: Skype DOES have this feature — they call it the “Send a Voicemail” feature.

~

UPDATE (10 July 2007): I’ve found (correction: actually, Ed used StumbleUpon — which is really cool — and found) a new service, called Jott, which allows you to call a toll-free number, speak your message into the phone, and have it automatically delivered via email… and/or SMS text message… and/or audio voice message. all for free… of course… (Are we getting spoiled with all of these cool internet-based services being free?)

The person you want to send a message to must be entered in advance into your Jott Contacts online at Jott.com…. But they have an automatic import tool which will import all of your contacts from your AOL, Outlook, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, Plaxo, or other email address book… if you like… or you can enter them manually.

You can also Jott “Notes to Self” and send one Jott to an entire pre-defined Group of your contacts… like your “Sales Team” group… Or your “church friends” group, or whatever… The system transcribes your voice message into text when sending to the person’s email address or as an SMS text message… which takes 2 or 3 minutes… Or, you can opt to send an “Instant Jott” with no transcription… as a recorded voice message only.

So far, Ed and I give it “two thumbs up”. It works very well. No more calling a person and hoping they don’t answer… :)

13 thoughts on “Call someone WITHOUT having to Talk with them!”

In most German cellphone (mobile telephony) networks, you can dial through to the voicemail box, if you just know how to. :-) It’s the same number the actual user uses to externally access his voicemail, just you don’t get query access, but you can just add a message. Of course, this is open to abuse (most people have to pay to call their own voice box).

Yes, there are usually similar “backdoor” numbers for the major voicemail systems here in the USA too. Almost every major cellphone, and landline, provider has a backdoor voicemail access number — one for each major market.

Unfortunately, these numbers are not published and are not intuitive to use.

I think that they should publish an actual FEATURE… So that when you call a number you first get a prompt: “Press 1 to go straight to leaving a voicemail, or press 2 to ring this phone… or simply stay on the line…”

Similar to what MC said applies to Verizon. After dialing your voicemail and entering your password, you’ll get something like this: “You have no new messages in your mailbox. To send a message, press 2…” Push that 2, enter the 10-digit number you want to leave your message to, and you’re on your way.

I’d like to leave messages to some people who call me from their landlines (not their cell phones). Does anybody know how I could call them back (to their landlines) and leave a message to them without actually having to speak with them?